a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy

a feeling of thoughtful sadness

a constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed

How to use melancholy in a sentence. Melancholy pronunciation.

It is impossible to say, how many, and how great the _Mischiefs_ are that spring from thence; which if a Man should take a View of, it would perhaps, be one of the most Melancholy Prospects that ever he beheld.

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It was a two-story log house situated on a small knoll in the midst of the vast basin or desert through which the sickly Carson winds its melancholy way.

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Presently after the Drawer came and told 'em that the Room was now empty, which they forthwith went into, and had the conveniency through a hole in the Wall, to see the Gentlewoman unseen, who sat leaning her Arm upon the Table, in a very melancholy Posture, as one much dissatisfy'd; having a Glass of Wine before her, and Pen, Ink and Paper.

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The image of the lovely Glycera, who had followed him to Alexandria, and whom he had there abandoned, when he had squandered his last piece of money and her last costly jewels in the Greek city, no longer appeared to him alone, but always side by side with his wife Sirona. Glycera had been a melancholy sweetheart, who had wept much, and laughed little after running away from her husband; he fancied he could hear her speaking soft words of reproach, while Sirona defied him with loud threats, and dared to nod and signal to the senator's son Polykarp.

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Furthermore, although a melancholy man, he is the only Russian humorist who has made the world laugh out loud.

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Their subsequent friendship was broken by a bitter and melancholy quarrel which lasted sixteen years.

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They are full of delicate character-analysis, both of men and of dogs; they clearly revealed, even in their melancholy humour, the actual condition of the serfs.

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And the absence of consciousness in this half-somnolent existence cast upon its whole beautiful expanse a shade of melancholy.

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Prince Louis was habitually sad and melancholy.

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And before the glow of sunset had died from the calm heaven he set out to walk homeward, anxious, melancholy.

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A few days of combat with the besieging melancholy that threatened disaster, and Nancy could meet her friend's look with a smile.

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By accentuating a pause between the life of daytime and that which will begin after dark, this grey hour excites to an unwonted perception of the city's vastness and of its multifarious labour; melancholy, yet not dismal, the brooding twilight seems to betoken Nature's compassion for myriad mortals exiled from her beauty and her solace.

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Hitherto she had spoken and listened with her head drooping in gentle melancholy; now, with a sudden change intended to signify the native buoyancy of her disposition, she uttered a rippling laugh, which showed her excellent teeth, and said prettily: 'Poor boy!

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Nancy had known few such melancholy days as this.

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But there could not in the nature of things be much resemblance, because Frank conceives Shakespear to have been a broken-hearted, melancholy, enormously sentimental person, whereas I am convinced that he was very like myself: in fact, if I had been born in 1556 instead of in 1856, I should have taken to blank verse and given Shakespear a harder run for his money than all the other Elizabethans put together.

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This is the real sorrow of great men; and in the face of it the notion that when a great man speaks bitterly or looks melancholy he must be troubled by a disappointment in love seems to me sentimental trifling.

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The delicate and reserved attentions with which he surrounded Mademoiselle d'Estrelles were tinged with a melancholy that showed her at the same time his gratitude, his respect, and his regrets.

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They found him much improved in personal appearance, and even reported affectionately that his face was fuller and had lost the melancholy cast it used to wear.

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Both dwelt there in the midst of their sweetest and most pleasant souvenirs; for this little chateau, so long deserted-the neglected woods which surrounded it the melancholy piece of water-the solitary nymph all this had been their particular domain, the favorite framework of their reveries, the legend of their infancy, the poetry of their youth.

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She had a presentiment of a melancholy future of solitude, of renunciation, of secret tears; but near him grief became a fete.

Related words

Words mentioned in sentences

Examples of Melancholy

Example #1

To look into our _Modern Plays_, and there to see the Differences of Good and Evil confounded, Prophaneness, Irreligion, and Unlawful Love, made the masterly Stroaks of the _fine Gentleman_; Swearing, Cursing, and Blaspheming, the Graces of his Conversation; and Unchristian Revenge, to consummate the Character of the _Hero_; Sharpness and Poignancy of Wit exerted with the greatest Vigor against the _Holy Order_; in short, Religion and all that is Sacred, Burlesqu'd and Ridicul'd; To see this, I say, and withall, to reflect upon the fatal Effects which these things have already had, and how much worse are likely to follow, if not timely prevented, cannot but fill the Minds of all good Men with very dismal Apprehensions.

Example #2

Irreligion_ are sown, which Weak and Tender Minds too readily cultivate, and from thence are easily led into a _Contempt_ of all that's Serious.

Example #3

Close to the house were the Overland stage stables, built of sun-dried bricks.

Example #4

We rode through a snow-storm for two or three days, and arrived at "Honey Lake Smith's," a sort of isolated inn on the Carson river.

Example #5

Soon after the Waterman comes in again, and tells her the Gentleman had not been at home since Morning, nor did they know where he was.